There’s an important note on Diplomacy (and, for that matter, on Intimidate), at least in 3.5;

Attitude is not everything.

How do I know this? Where are the official rules on that?

Lets take a look at the examples in the 3.5 Dungeon Master’s Guide to see what you can get when you change an NPC’s Attitude. It will take a little searching but the Dungeon Master’s Guide tells us…

Choose the attitude of an NPC or NPCs based on circumstances. Most people met in a neutral city are indifferent. Most guards are indifferent but suspicious, because that’s what’s expected of them.

It specifically mentions “suspicious”. So there are factors other than attitude which influence behavior. That seems reasonable. A cranky museum guide and a friendly one will both tend to do what museum guides are expected to do – but there will be notable differences in how helpful and informative they are.

If the thaumaturgist’s Diplomacy check adjusts the creature’s attitude to helpful (see Influencing NPC Attitudes, page 72 of the Player’s Handbook), the creature will work for 50% of the standard fee, as long as the task is one that is not against its nature.

So altering attitudes will not convince a creature to forgo it’s needs and desires, to act against its “nature”, or to do things for free – although it may give you a price break on helping you out if it likes you.

Floating in serene contemplation in the center of the cloud island is a noble djinn (see page 115 of the Monster Manual). If characters capture her (by defeating her without killing her or driving her away), she will grant three wishes collectively to the party. She is eager to talk to visitors from the Material Plane, where she spent more than a century trapped by an evil wizard. If characters can improve her attitude to friendly (it starts out indifferent), she’ll offer the characters a bargain. She will grant three wishes to the party if the characters will first avenge her imprisonment by capturing the evil Material Plane conjurer and returning him to this cloud island, where the djinn will arrange for “long-term detention.”

So, while it wouldn’t really cost the Djinn anything to grant those wishes for free, she won’t do so even if you render her “friendly”. She’ll use them to ransom herself or to accomplish her own goals. Evidently her goals are important to her – and being friendly doesn’t mean giving away valuable stuff for free no matter HOW helpful that would be to the party.

Some hirelings might require hazard pay (perhaps as high as double normal pay) if placed in particularly dangerous situations. In addition to demanding hazard pay, hirelings placed in great danger might be unfriendly (see Influencing NPC Attitudes, page 72 of the Player’s Handbook), but characters potentially can influence them to a better attitude and perhaps even talk them out of hazard pay.

So a good attitude doesn’t necessarily mean that your hirelings wont insist on price-gouging you, although “perhaps” you could talk them out of it.

And that’s about all the Dungeon Master’s Guide gives us. That’s really quite enough though. It tells us that duties, beliefs, obligations, past experiences, personal desires, and the personal costs of various behaviors have a major impact on behavior – and may override attitude when it comes to any significant request.

In other words, the Dungeon Master’s Guide says to play NPC’s as people with their own goals – and that a glib tongue will only get you so far.

That’s fair enough. I know plenty of people that I like, but whom I know perfectly well are totally untrustworthy and have no intention of keeping any deals they make or repaying any money that they borrow. They’re personable, and they’re fun – but they’re incorrigible scam artists. Some of them brag about it.

Did that idea continue, or was it superseded by later sources like so many other rules? Lets look at what a much later book – the Dungeon Master’s Guide II – has for examples of Diplomacy in action

Drow Raiders: When first encountered, the initial attitude of these slave traders is hostile. Only the most charismatic of player characters (someone who makes a DC 35 Diplomacy check) can convince the dark elves not to attack. Even then, they’re likely to betray the characters at the first opportunity.

So Nature still trumps Diplomacy. The Drow are treacherous and (chaotic) evil, and no amount of diplomacy will change that one little bit.

“Dwarf Warriors: These dwarves are within a mile of the stronghold they call home. Their initial attitude is unfriendly unless one of the characters is also a dwarf, in which case their attitude is indifferent. At the very least, they want to escort the characters to their home for interrogation. The dwarves are not hostile and do not attack unless provoked. The characters can convince the dwarves to let them go on their way with a successful DC 25 Diplomacy check. A DC 40 check convinces the dwarves to give the PCs directions or invite them back to their home for a free night of dwarven hospitality and the opportunity to replenish supplies (and possibly purchase items of fine dwarf craftsmanship).”

Note that no check DC is listed for “getting free stuff” beyond a meal and a place to stay (basic hospitality), or for “abandoning your duties and coming along to help out”, or anything similar. These Dwarves have duties and a job, and will be doing it even if you DO seem like nice folks.

In the case of unusual cohorts, mounts, familiars, or animal companions, the guards call upon their commander for assistance and make sure that the suspect creature is well behaved and under the responsibility of its group. A DC 15 Diplomacy check convinces the guards of this, at which point they charge a 1-gp exotic animal tax for each unusual creature granted entrance to the city. If the Diplomacy check succeeds by 15 or more (in other words, if the travelers make a DC 30 check), the guards agree to charge the standard entry tax of 5 cp per individual instead. Obviously evil or dangerous creatures, such as undead and creatures of size Huge or larger, are flatly refused entry. If things begin to turn confrontational, four guards gather reinforcements from the watchtowers and alert the garrison.

So no amount of Diplomacy will make the guards violate their orders or admit obvious threats to their town’s well-being. More importantly, the next paragraph tells us that the guards are standard first level human warriors.

There’s a pretty obvious pattern there. It’s very easy (DC 15) to talk people into exercising what discretion they have in doing their jobs – but no amount of “diplomacy” short of mind control will talk them into doing something stupid.

Sure, there are the epic level rules for diplomacy – but even that (somewhat problematic) source says to

Treat the fanatic attitude as a mind-affecting enchantment effect for purposes of immunity, save bonuses, or being detected by the Sense Motive skill. Since it is nonmagical, it can’t be dispelled; however, any effect that suppresses or counters mind-affecting effects will affect it normally. A fanatic NPC’s attitude can’t be further adjusted by the use of skills.

Er… it’s not magic, but if I have a bonus that only works against magic, it works against it and it will be blocked by antimagic? I detect a writer who can’t make up his or her mind. Oh well.

In any case, now we know. From the beginning of 3.5 until the end “Friendly” meant that NPC’s would try to accommodate you within the limits of their jobs, duties, oaths, and responsibilities. That friendly bureaucrat would help you get the right forms, and explain them, and help you fill them out, and even try to expedite them through the system. He won’t just ignore his responsibilities though.

The d20 rules are there to help you simulate a fantasy world. Just as in reality, duties, promises, and oaths, obligations, common sense, and beliefs all play at least as large a role as whether or not they’re feeling helpful or hostile in determining what actual actions people take. Plenty of people have killed people they loved, felt personal loyalty to, and desperately wanted to help, out of duty, or because it would spare them pain, or shame, or dishonor, or out of a twisted notion of the best way to help them, because their families, or personal honor, or liege lords required it, or because their faith told them that it was their gods will. Plenty of other people have done good and helpful things for people that they detest for the same list of reasons. (You can ask any public defender about THAT). An executioner who likes you may carefully arrange the wood around your stake so that the smoke smothers you before you burn in agony – but executioners who let their personal feelings get in the way of doing their jobs quit early on. Others specifically stay because it lets them make the inevitable less painful.

Changing a non-player characters attitude may ot may not influence what they do, and is fairly likely to influence how they do it – but it certainly does not control it. At work I and many other people regularly deal, or have dealt with, with both people that we don’t much like, and with people that we do like – and very few of them know which category they’re in. They all get treated the same way because that is a part of the job. Whether or not we like the people involved is irrelevant to what we were hired to do – and we agreed to do it when we took the job. If we were not willing to do it… we would have found another job. People will go a bit further beyond what they’re supposed to do for the ones they like – but most people will do some of that just to show off how good they are. Simple professionalism places very strict limits to that in either case though.

So why does Diplomacy target NPC’s attitudes instead of – say – trying to get them to make a deal like THIS revision tries? It’s because simple skill checks generally cannot do much of anything to change an NPC’s duties, promises, oaths, obligations, presence (or lack) of common sense, beliefs, or notions of “honor”. Their attitude is about all you CAN affect.

And that is why the “Diplomancer” doesn’t actually work and why Diplomacy is not nearly as overpowered as many authors have claimed. Diplomacy can get your targets to hear you out and consider your words. It can even get them to want to help you – but you the player are still going to have to figure out how to wedge what YOU want into the targeted NPC’s web of responsibilities and social obligations in an acceptable fashion. Until you start doing mind-controlling magical skill stunts, there is no diplomacy check that will let you talk the museum guard into helping you steal the Mona Lisa just because he likes you. Talk him into letting you sneak in a camera? Very possible. Talk him into helping you steal it in exchange for a colossal bribe (enough to provide for his children, care for his ailing mother, and set up a new identity?) Maybe – if he’s somewhat corruptible already (thus not going against his nature) and you can present a good case for him being able to get away with it.

So what produced the notion that changing people’s attitude would utterly change their behavior to begin with? Admittedly, the various examples that demonstrate otherwise are a bit of a pain to find without a searchable PDF, but they’re there.

The answer lies in the way that the game is played. Players run their characters, the game master runs the world. Virtually all of the actual social interaction that the game master is trying to fit the NPC’s into is between the players, rather than between the player characters and the NPC’s.

Gaming involves a LOT of escapism. Players tend to treat their characters as being entirely free-willed, unburdened by responsibilities, lacking friends and family ties, outside of all social conventions, usually loyal only to each other (if generally only out of convenience) and their own self-image, having religious beliefs only insofar as they offer statistical bonuses, ignoring the law when it suits them, and so on. Even death is no real restraint; if a character doesn’t get brought back new ones are easy to make. Being a part of the world is seen as giving the game master free hooks with which to manipulate your character!

And so, for Player-Characters (who are almost assured of profit because that’s built into the game for them), “attitude” tends to be EVERYTHING. If they decide that they like the opposition better than the royalists, the characters are likely to start a civil war, leave the realm in rubble, get tens of thousands killed, and install a new government – and why not? Even if they recognize the hideous suffering and immense human cost… they can just plaster it over with a some vague statement about how their actions were in accord with their alignments. THEY will still get their levels and treasure, and that’s all that really matters to most player characters.

There are a LOT of problems with that (and I may get to them in another article), but given that sort of behavior template to go on, it’s no wonder that game masters – who have almost no time at all on the average to devote to their NPC’s motives – tend to slip into the same model. Their NPC’s HAVE no motives or goals outside of their attitude towards the player characters, and so changing their “attitude” is sufficient to make them do anything the player characters want.

If it would be a big change for some NPC to tell the Diplomancer that “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you today; I have to go home and take care of a sick kid” then you, as a game master, REALLY need to put a little more thought into your NPC’s. It will give your game a lot more interest and depth – and you’ll be a lot closer to what the rulebooks are telling you to do.

And today it’s another question – and an examination of a very classic item; the Lyre of Building.

While it’s not quite feasible at his current level, I’d expect that Zhan (Levels -2 to 2, Levels 3-8) would benefit greatly from purchasing Siddhisyoga and using it with a Lyre of Building.

Of course, it’d be a bit awkward to have to make a Perform (string instruments) check with an absorbed magic item, but at worst that would necessitate taking Finesse – probably specialized and corrupted – to change it to a different sort of Perform check (ideally the one used in conjunction with Mystic Artist). Given that it’s easy to pump up skill bonuses, it’d be simplicity itself to get it high enough so as to never fail the DC 18 check. At that point, the sky’s the limit with regards to what can be made.

-Alzrius

The Lyre of Building is really hard to pass up isn’t it? A mere 13,000 GP and a reliable DC 18 Perform check (Say… 1 SP, +4 Charisma, +3 Pathfinder, and Specialized Mastery (3 CP) to “Take 10” if your game master won’t let you do so normally – and you can reliably do this at first level) and you can perform rather a lot of work per hour.

Lyre of Building: If the proper chords are struck, a single use of this lyre negates any attacks made against all inanimate construction (walls, roof, floor, and so on) within 300 feet. This includes the effects of a horn of blasting, a disintegrate spell, or an attack from a ram or similar siege weapon. The lyre can be used in this way once per day, with the protection lasting for 30 minutes.

The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

Er… Exactly how much work? Is it skilled work? How skilled? Is it done as if with tools? Are materials needed? If materials are needed, can they be raw materials as available in the surrounding area or do they need to be ready-to-use? How do you convert work-time into actual construction? And is there much of a point? After all, in d20 from the middle levels on up (where you might have this item) a standard medieval castle is only a little more defensible than a circus tent.

A large part of this is because the Lyre of Building is an early first edition legacy item – from before there WERE skills, or much of any rules about materials, or buying magical items, or wealth-by-level. It was also rather more limited in first (and second) edition; you got thirty minutes of construction per week, and a roll to see if you did it right – not a roll to see if you could keep on going after the first hour. It still didn’t translate well into the building system though, since that was based on costs and didn’t really mention the size of the work crews save for a note under digging ditches.

First edition did make it clear that “a day of work” was always eight hours long though, which at least gives us one figure – 2400 hours of work per half-hour, 4800 per hour.

That’s still a big, BIG, multiplier.

How skilled? It IS a powerful magical tool dedicated to a particular function – so I’ll presume that it gets a generic +5 bonus (since it’s a lot more expensive than a cheaper device that can simply summon swarms of unseen servants) and always takes 10 – giving it a check of “15″ unless the user opts to use his or her own (and presumably superior) skills instead.

For materials, stuff materializing out of nowhere is overpowered (who wants to build a platinum castle?), but calling for ready-to-use stockpiles pretty well eliminates most adventurous or military uses – so it looks like it should be able to use available raw materials, turning trees into lumber, outcroppings of stone into blocks, clay into bricks, and (in about the worst case) dirt into adobe. The work of doing so does count against the work it can accomplish though.

If you want to do anything too elaborate, you’ll need to either be, or consult, a competent architect and/or engineer. If you have no such skills you can just rely on the Lyre’s automatic “15″ check, which is enough to design serviceable basic structures.

That still leaves us with a major rules chasm between us and actually getting something done though; there really aren’t any rules for how many man-hours it takes to accomplish something except for Crafting and the castle books for 2.0 and 3.0 – and 3.0, at least, intentionally tried to downplay using magic for construction so that strongholds would still be money pits.

That’s not too surprising given how incredibly situational (and rarely useful) any kind of man-hour estimate is, but it’s still a problem.

Well, we shall work with what we’ve got.

According to the rules for Crafting… We can set the DC at 5 (the basic labor of building is pretty straightforward), so a +10 makes it 15. With the Check at 15, you get 225 SP worth of progress towards your goal per “week of work” (presumably 40 hours). That measure says that the basic “value added” rate for the Lyre is 2700 GP per hour. Sure, you’ll need to increase the cost of what you’re building by a third if you’re having to harvest and process raw materials (since those cost a third of the projects cost) – but that takes us to an effective (rounded down) 2000 GP per hour for creating buildings starting from nothing but locally available resources.

Taking that as the baseline, from the SRD’s building costs you can build two Simple Houses* per hour, a Grand House in two and a half hours, a Tower or a Moat with a Bridge in a day, a Mansion in two days, a Keep in three days, a Castle in ten days, and a Huge Castle in twenty days – presuming that you’re undead, or a construct, or otherwise have no objection to playing for twenty-four hours a day.

*Please note that a “simple house” is a good-sized stone dwelling with multiple rooms. If you are throwing together wattle-and-daub cottages for the peasants, or log cabins… what references I can find suggest about 80 man-hours and 200 man-hours respectively. That’s sixty cottages or twenty-four cabins per hour of playing – although they will be pretty minimal designs. to get fancy, just reduce the numbers.

How reasonable are these results? Well, buildings vary a LOT, but basic Motte-and-Bailey “castles” are surprisingly standardized – and according to some classical accounts 50 workmen could build a Motte-and-Bailey castle in about 40 days. That’s about three and a half hours for the Lyre. But it’s not like that figure has been well tested; it’s based on a scattering of notes from historical accounts from varying locations, situations, and structures.

Is there something that IS being tested? We’re in luck there! There is indeed!

Project Gueledon is using 13’th century techniques to build a 13’th century style castle, with a dry moat, curtain walls, corner towers, and a tower keep. It’s expected to take 50 workers a total of 25 years. I’ll presume they’re doing a modern, full-time, schedule; medevial workmen probably worked longer days, but they also had to take more time off for malingering, holy days, illnesses, injuries (a VERY big factor), and similar issues. Secomdarily, castles are only worked on during good weather, which lets out a third to almost half the year. So… 50 Workers x 25 Years x 250 work days per year x 8 hours per workday x 60% of the year = 1,500,000 hours. That’s 312 hours of playing, or about 13 days

Given the number of approximations involved in those calculations that’s really remarkably close – certainly close enough for game purposes.

So we have a reasonable approximation; the Lyre accomplishes about 2000 GP “worth” of work per hour of playing.

So how will that work out in whatever setting you’re using?

The next major problem with the Lyre of Building is that third edition turned it from a near-unique wonder out of legends into a common – and relatively cheap as far as magic items go – tool. After a certain point (and not even a particularly high level one) there’s little reason to build things in any other way unless you want to install some special magic or have other exotic methods available.

And that may be a good thing. Europe is full of structures that are many centuries old, and still standing. In a d20 world, on the other hand, there are adamantine blades, stone-smashing techniques, dragon attacks, stray elementals breaking stuff, iron golems wrecking the roads while walking about, and a thousand other menaces. Given the likely rate at which the infrastructure gets destroyed in a d20 universe it’s quite possible that the populace needs access to some Lyres of Building just to keep up.

From that point of view buying yourself a Lyre of Building may simply be a way of purchasing a lifestyle:

Lyre of Building: Characters who purchase this item get to live in very large and fancy houses or small palaces, in clean towns with nice buildings, little risk of fire, roman-style streets, aqueducts which provide fresh, clean, running water, drains which carry away the stench and the sewage, an adequately housed populace, and have many small luxuries, such as some competent servants. In addition, their holdings, dependents, and properties can be assumed to automatically survive the occasional dragon-raid, firebombing, earthquake, and similar disaster, entirely intact.

Why is that? It’s because a Lyre of Building means that “all inanimate construction (walls, roof, floor, and so on) within 300 feet” can be rendered invulnerable for half an hour each day.

Invulnerability. For half an hour. In a three hundred foot radius. Go ahead, let the epic Wrath of God spell rain down 500d6 of annihilation over the village. As long as everyone stays indoors they’ll all be fine. Are your shutters latched? Then the latch, the shutters, the hinges, and the wall around them will stand up to that rampaging dragon for half an hour.

How many other 13,000 GP items can accomplish THAT? Even if it is a bit special purpose? About the only comparable item in the game is the Rod of Security at 61,000 GP – and it can only affect 200 people, who must be holding hands, and only works once per week. Even then, it involves fleeing to a pocket dimension – and “not being there” has always been one of the best available defenses.

Most d20 battles are a lot shorter than thirty minutes. D20 is, after all, the game system that brought us “Rocket Tag”, “Scry-and-Die”, and many similar tactics.

Bridging at least a part of this disconnect is actually pretty simple though: just note the fairly obvious point that – regardless of the purely theoretical cost of building a major structure the old-fashioned way with hand labor – it’s actual cost is going to be based on “how much do the people with Lyres of Building want to charge?” – and that’s generally going to substantially less than the cost of getting your own Lyre and doing it yourself, although those few constructs and undead who can play straight through may get a premium for speed on larger structures.

They may not though; no one says that you can’t hire four guys with Lyres and quadruple your speed – or find a serious expert with better skills.

Either way though… that means that the towns are likely to have walls and citadels (they may not be very effective, but they’re nice and cheap!), oversized drains that rogues can hide in, basic water systems, and more. Even if those walls and citadels aren’t really much use, they’re cheap enough to get them anyway just for those rare occasions where they ARE useful.

The Rod of the Imperator accomplishes construction and engineering work and provides simple services. It is capable of setting up camps, digging ditches, building bridges, cleaning, serving food, assembling locomotives, cleaning, fitting, quarrying stone, making mortar, harvesting trees, basic carpentry, mending clothing, mining and crudely smelting ore, helping men get their armor and weapons on (30 man-sized creatures or 10 horses may be so readied per action), repairing structures even as they are being attacked, and so on.

The Rod’s function has a range of three hundred feet. .

It can function for up to three hours per week. This use need not be continuous, but any usage is rounded up to the nearest full minute.

Each full action spent giving commands and pointing with the rod accomplishes ten man-hours of work if the user can make a DC 18 Perform / Oratory check. Failures accomplish nothing, but still count against the available time.

Such work is performed as if by a craftsman or servant equipped with the proper tools, using materials available in the area, and either “taking 15″ on any necessary skill checks or using the wielders relevant skill check. (Very complicated buildings may call for input from a professional architect).

If using a table of construction costs each round of use “purchases” 5 GP worth of work – although (if these are available in the setting) no one will be paying anything approaching that rate for any construction, any more than modern construction companies pay extra for moving earth by hand instead of using bulldozers. If set yourself up in a town or a city and can reliably make the necessary skill check you can reasonably expect to make 2d4 x 50 GP / Week – adding a d4 during times when such work is in great demand and subtracting a d4 during slack times.

Each round spent on performing repairs to structures or other inanimate objects repairs 5d6 points of damage

Variant forms occupy item slots (and usually use Craft Wondrous Item instead of Craft Rod), but may use other skills. For example, Architects Spectacles and Engineering Goggles both occupy the Face slot, but allow the use of Knowledge / Architecture and Engineering in place of Perform / Oratory.

There. That’s really useful and highly versatile – but it isn’t overwhelmingly world-wrecking or capable of defeating epic menaces. It will, however, set up a well-fortified camp each night, plug leaks in levees, dig tornado shelters in mere moments, perform swift repairs during a siege, and much more.

I may give Zhan something like that at higher levels, but not for a bit.

For today it’s basically explaining some bits of Eclipse’s design – thanks to a question/objection brought up in this review (my thanks to the reviewer by the way). That’s most obliging of the reviewer actually; getting to a chance to explain why some of the design decisions in Eclipse were made is always interesting (That’s what the “d20 Failure Modes” series was all about really). That’s why, if there’s anything else which looks strange, I’ll be glad to explain why it’s in there.

In this case I’ve been given a chance to take a detailed look at the “Block” ability and at “Balance”.

First up it’s the Block ability, how it stacks up against other defenses and why it was designed the way it was.

Given that Eclipse is a point-buy system, the first thing to consider is the cost. Block – at low levels and at it’s base cost – is cheap but rather unreliable, can only be used against one attack a round, uses up the blocking characters attack of opportunity, and has upper limits of effect since it only provides “Great Immunity” (page 34) to an attack. In low level play, however, Great Immunity will generally suffice to stop any single attack. Thus at low levels Block is generally seen combined with Luck. The basic Block functions as a way to somewhat reduce the average damage taken (like AC, although the actual amount of protection is inferior to raising your AC to start with) and – with the use of the Luck ability – as a way to escape occasional overwhelming attacks.

At higher levels relying on Block as a regular defense is possible – but it is resource intensive; you’ll need to get more attacks of opportunity per round, to obtain a high reflex save, and to spend rather a lot on Block; you’ll want to take it for both Melee and Missile attacks, to improve the roll for each, and to get more uses (at least three per round) for each – for a total of 48 CP (or eight feats) – not counting what you spend on getting the extra attacks of opportunity and the high reflex save. This will, however, make you pretty hard to hurt with most attacks – barring rolling a “1” of course, which automatically fails saves.

Of course, investing that kind of resources in Armor Class will get you up to the point where anything that has a 10% or better chance of missing anyone else in the party will need a twenty to hit you. Investing those resources in Damage Reduction can get you up around 20/- against both physical attacks and energy.

At this point we need to consider various basic attack strategies against those defenses: While “Rely on a high BAB and moderately enhanced damage” is the standard attack mode at lower levels, at higher levels an assortment of variants enter play. Major attack modes to consider include:

Relying on a high BAB and moderately enhanced damage. This is, as noted above, the generic default option – and is reasonably effective against an AC defense, reasonably effective against a block defense (via the option to give up points from BAB to increase the DC of the the block check), and inflicts enough damage to be reasonably effective against a damage reduction defense.

Inflicting massive damage with a single attack. This fails versus an AC defense, can penetrate a Block defense with greatly reduced effect, and can easily overcome a Damage Reduction defense.

Making a large number of weaker attacks – possibly deploying companions or conjurations (an option open to melee builds in Eclipse). This fails versus a Damage Reduction defense, can penetrate an AC defense with greatly reduced effect, and can easily overcome a Block defense.

If a character has spent the points to learn to block magical attacks, we can consider two more possibilities – although this makes relying on Block more expensive again.

Use individually-targeted magical attacks, such as Magic Missile. These fail versus a Block defense (at least until you reach very high level attack spells, which will automatically overcome Blocks – although the user will still get a save bonus), can penetrate a Damage Reduction (“Energy resistance” – in Eclipse unrestricted Damage Reduction or some level of Immunity) defense with greatly reduced effect, and generally (magic does vary a lot) easily overcome an AC defense.

Use area effects: These are usually limited use and do intermediate amounts of damage – and generally bypass AC, Blocks, and most affordable Damage Reduction. Against these you’ll want other defenses.

As levels increase, AC differentials increase, Damage Reduction rises, and Blocks become more reliable – barring rolling a “1” of course, which automatically fails (comparable to the way that an AC defense always fails against a 20). Of course, Armor Class becomes more reliable as the spread of AC’s in the party expands – and Damage Reduction is inherently reliable to start with.

To avoid adding another level of calculations to combat Block has a fixed effect. It has a fixed DC specifically to make it activate unreliably at lower levels (and thus be comparable in average effect to a relatively low differential in AC or a modest amount of damage reduction) and to make it activate reliably at higher levels when other defenses are more substantial and there are more ways around it.

And that is why Block is designed the way it is. There may, of course, be more elegant ways – but this one did what I wanted without introducing any major new systems.

As far as balance issues go… there are always four factors there, one of which was also a major feature for ease-of-use.

First up (and perhaps most importantly), Eclipse was designed to be back-compatible with multiple versions of d20 – including 3.0, 3.5, Modern and Future – as well as being forward-compatible with anything else based on the d20 SRD. That allows players and game masters to use Eclipse while continuing to use conventional classes, sourcebooks, and creatures as desired. That’s why it isn’t really necessary to convert anything to Eclipse – although page 191 does include a rule for applying a quick veneer of customization to standard monsters and characters if Eclipse is in play.

Thus there’s actually no need to “break down” anything in Pathfinder for Eclipse; you can freely mix Eclipse and Pathfinder characters and creatures, or allow Pathfinder characters to build their own bonus feats with Eclipse, or use standard Pathfinder builds up to a point and give the players the option to build their levels from then on with Eclipse. I only bother breaking down Pathfinder or third-party material because it’s requested – and because I find it somewhat gratifying that Eclipse can reproduce classes and races published long after it was.

Unfortunately, back-compatibility meant accepting a selection of “balance” problems inherited from the source material – whether from the SRD classes, races, and creatures, or from the need to be able to reproduce various “broken” builds and classes since there’s no universal agreement on what those are (except, perhaps, for Pun-Pun).

Secondarily, balance depends strongly on the setting; a thieving character with an inherent ability to become invisible for a short time twice a day and to use Knock twice a day has a fairly minor power in a mid-level fantasy game. In a d20 modern setting that’s normally no-magic he’d have a pair of astounding super powers. A character with a major army and set of fortifications at his or her command would be grossly unbalanced in most games – but is just fine for a Birthright-style game.

Thus in the Manifold setting characters are encouraged to take a variety of “abusive” options. After all, in a setting where battles are often between star fleets and a first level warrior type can have his own personal mecha and equip it with microfusion missiles, less militant characters can have a hard time competing. Even taking Godhood won’t necessarily do it (and we’ve had several player-character gods using the Eclipse rules for godhood in various games; it seems to work fine).

Since Eclipse is setting-independent, this sort of problem is inevitable – but it’s what the Campaign Options checklist and the stress on game master control is for; to eliminate the options that won’t work right in your setting (it really has nothing to do with the narrative of the game). It does call for looking over the list carefully though; if you’re running a “no magic” game you need to remember to check off “Inherent Spell” and similar options as well as magic levels.

Third is some intentional tweaking of the d20 power curves – and not just by flattening them a bit. For example, Witchcraft peaks in usefulness relatively early – and is far more useful later on to combative or stealthy characters than it is to magic-using characters. A martially-themed character who augments his or her abilities with a little Witchcraft will have a much wider range of options, and will remain competitive much longer, than a character who does not – and that is encouraged by the system by making Witchcraft quite cheap. A Rogue-type who spends some points on Witchcraft effectively loses a lot less than a Wizard-type who does the same; Rogues and Warrior-types tend more towards individual abilities than the sequential abilities of a Wizard-type – and so they miss individual abilities a lot less.

If you don’t want to do those things, the Campaign Options checklist is once again your friend. You simply ban the options that don’t fit your game – just as the original Dragonlance setting banned clerical magic.

Fourth, a certain amount of “game balance” is always subjective. Things that strike one game master as being “balanced” will strike others as being “unbalanced” – and there’s no game-mechanical cure for that, just as there’s no game-mechanical solution to players who insist on making inappropriate characters or keep trying to spoil the game for everyone else.

That’s why there’s an afterword on the topic in Eclipse – mostly with the observation that it’s hard to find much more perfect balance than “everyone uses the same list of abilities and the same costs”.

I appreciate “broken” characters too; there’s a page about optimized and broken builds as a resource; with any luck the reviewer will let me know what builds broke easily so that I can add any new ones to what’s already there. If anyone is interested, here’s a reasonably up-to-date index page for Eclipse races, templates, and characters.

I only recently discovered the Tier System for classes in D&D 3.5, by one of the guys over at Brilliant Gameologists, and was wondering what you thought of it.

Looking it over (the second post seems to be the most insightful), this is basically a system for ranking classes based on two factors: 1) How many relevant options they can exercise in *any* given situation (or perhaps it’s better to say “in *every* possible situation”), and 2) how powerful those options are. As you probably guessed, full-progression spellcasters that don’t have a limit to how many spells they can know top the list.

I have to admit, I find this to be a very insightful breakdown of the various classes, particularly in terms of its analysis regarding what these differing tiers mean in the context of practical game-play (particularly what the GM can expect, and should prepare for, if the players use differing-tier classes in his campaign).

-Alzrius

Stop looking behind the curtain!

Well… I’ve run across the Tier system before, but – to be honest – I’ve never really had that much use for it. Most obviously, that’s because most of my games use classless systems, which makes the entire notion of Class Tiers something of a moot point. There are several more subtle reasons though, mostly revolving around the conditions under which it operates. The Tier system can be very, VERY, useful to those who are playing a classed d20 game “straight” – that is to say, when…

Most of the stuff from a fair number of “official” books is allowed, including at least a few badly written or edited bits*.

There are no special world-laws that restrict problematic abilities or other major modifications to the classes.

The “party” is an automatic association, instead of simply being a current group of characters (possibly one of many) with reasons to work together.

The game follows the default d20 pattern – a few sessions worth of self-contained set-piece challenge-rating-appropriate encounters and then a “boss fight” (and usually a level up), with a few bits of gather-information, find-the-mcguffin, social-persuasion, and bypass-the-obstacle activities thrown in along the way.

The game continues to relatively high levels. After all, comparing a fourth-level Wizard or Cleric to a fourth-level (whatever) is usually not all that much like comparing an eighteenth-level Wizard or Cleric to an eighteenth level (whatever).

The game master is handing out per-level treasure normally, and is either putting in plenty of downtime for spell research and crafting or is allowing magic-shopping.

And (of course) that the game is not using Eclipse or another classless system.

In that case the Tier system is reasonably accurate – and can be EXTREMELY helpful. After all, “default games” are very common; an awful lot of game masters have neither the time, nor the inspiration, to invent a world, sort through a mountain of sourcebooks for what to allow, create world laws, let parties self-select from a pool of characters rather than simply having everyone make a character, and adjust the game to complicate things or to keep things at their preferred levels. For them, the Tier system is an excellent guide to what to expect and what to watch out for.

There’s a lot of fun to be had that way – but I generally do take the time. In addition..

I’m not much for “level appropriate encounters”. I’ve found that it’s usually MUCH more interesting to let the players discover a strange problem, follow trails of clues to figure out exactly what it is, find that it’s far beyond their ability to deal with directly, gather information, either come up with a plan to exploit a vulnerability they’ve uncovered or gather the resources they need to implement whatever solution they come up with, and then try to pull out a victory. With that kind of adventure structure it really doesn’t matter much how powerful any individual character is; every character can find useful (and often vital) things to do, given that the “Tier 1” types can’t be everywhere at once and that they’re sorting out their own missions (which will, of course, be tailored to their particular abilities). That way special resources – such as connections and character-tailored unique items – often matter more than having an impressive range of personal powers to use. There’s an example of that over HERE.

I’ve allowed various freeform magic systems since the late 70’s – albeit usually limited by theme. Over that time I’ve found that cleverly applied minor abilities usually outperform poorly-applied raw power – and my games tend to make small, themed, freeform magics available to anyone who wants them. Of course, when you misuse freeform abilities, or apply more traditional talents in creative and unusual ways, there’s always a chance that things will go spectacularly wrong. Similarly, most of my games since the late 70’s have allowed some form of special talent system – something which makes little difference to a powerful character, but helps a lot with weaker ones. That also means that I’ve had a LOT of practice evaluating proposed spells and powers – which is why many of the spells and ability combinations that are favored as “win buttons” (for example, Shivering Touch) do not make it into my games. After all, if it was THAT easy, then those problems would have already been dealt with by other groups. Ergo it’s obviously not that easy – although discovering why may be an adventure in itself.

Problems in my games can usually be solved in many different ways – and the most workable solutions generally involve some sneaking and information gathering, some player deduction, some magic/psionics, some persuasion and negotiation, and sometimes some combat. Those tasks may be simultaneous in in different locations or they may call for a group effort (it depends a lot on how the players decide to handle a situation). When everyone can contribute in their own fashion, flexibility simply means that you get to handle whatever task it is that no one else wants to deal with (Congratulations! It’s probably the worst one!).

When there is combat, both the PC’s and the NPC’s in my games tend to use tactics. If the Wizard (or whatever) is really causing your side problems, than you focus your sides efforts on the Wizard and you take him or her out as quickly and efficiently as possible. Of course, the more high-level characters on both sides tend to have defense and escape effects ready – a major reason WHY those individuals have made it to high levels. That’s also why most of the “solve my problem” effects do not work on important people, serious problems, and major opponents. There are LOTS of people out there with special powers; if those important people, problems, and opponents could be dealt with so easily… they would have been dealt with long ago and they wouldn’t be important now.

I am throughly willing to play up the disadvantages of the various character types. Clerics had better be being very careful to stay in their gods good graces, Wizards had better look after that precious spellbook and make backups, and so on – and in the time they spend doing that, and in researching spells or making items, the rest of the party is likely to go adventuring without them (one reason why multiple characters are common). Freeform casters, or those pushing their powers, had best be prepared to deal with the possibly disastrous consequences of mistakes. If the enemy facing your party of wizards sensibly flees to a no-magic dimension… then the players will either have to play non-magical characters for a while to go after him or anticipate the eventual return of a well-prepared foe.

There is no strict division between “Player Character” and “Non-Player Character” in my games. The players often have multiple major characters, and equally often play secondary characters, or henchmen, or old characters from other players, or have characters retire (they sometimes play some of their children later, and sometimes they make guest appearances when the game hits something important to the character again), or simply take over NPC’s (whether temporarily or to develop one that they found interesting into a regular character). There are also quite often multiple parties, players on hold until they can start making it to sessions again, and players who want to sub-GM for a bit. This also means that parties sometimes reject particular characters, effectively putting them out of play. If the party thinks that a particular character is a pain… they do not have to take him or her along.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Tier system; it works just fine for it’s intended purpose. It’s just that it’s pretty much inapplicable to any of my games.

For some practical campaign-log examples of how things tend to go… I’d recommend the Shadowrun Yseult Sequence ( Part I, Part II,Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Mapping Interlude, Part IX, Part X, and Part XI – Aftermath.) – and, if you have lots of time, the Star Wars Codex log (although just the index is fairly long). The Federation-Apocalypse log is VERY incomplete, both because the game is still ongoing and because I ran out of time to keep the log up – but the last logged session was #201, so there’s plenty of material anyway. The Exalted Chronicles of Heavenly Artifice are also still ongoing, but the logs are up through session 135 (even if they are mostly from the viewpoint of a single character).

*It’s worth noting that many of the examples given for a Wizard easily solving problems have problems of their own, at least from my point of view. Again, that doesn’t mean that the Tier system is wrong – a high-level Wizard may (and probably will) have a vast array of powerful options available – but the most dramatic examples of overpowered spells and combinations of spells tend (pretty much by definition) to be among the “poorly written or edited” material, just like the worst examples of fighter feat combinations.

Thus…

Shivering Touch is blatantly poorly edited – Damage with a Duration? – and is very commonly disallowed as being absurdly overpowered. Lets see… Level 3, no save, 3d6 dexterity damage. Not only is this likely instant out-of-action for a lot of creatures, but it can be put into spell storing missiles. Get forty bowmen; they’re bound to get SOME twenties. Fortunately for Dragons in Eclipse they all have (of course) quite a lot of the Path of the Dragon – which means that they can take some spell absorption abilities very very easily indeed (along with a wide variety of other defenses). Thus a single problematic spell is much less of a problem in Eclipse.

Love’s Pain is only third level – and can thus easily be spammed. It damages whoever the target creature most loves, bypassing saves and spell resistance. How hard is it to, say, make a puppy love someone? If Love’s Pain works as described, anyone, anywhere, who isn’t immune to mind-affecting spells (right on up through the local gods) can be killed off at whim by any group who can scrape up the money for enough scrolls and get illusions that are good enough to fool a puppy. This wrecks most settings. While Eclipse, once again, offers a variety of defenses, the real answer is fairly simple; the ability to strike at a target anywhere in the multiverse calls for much, much, higher level magic – which is why Deathlink (which is similar, but more limited) from Paths of Power II is ninth level – and why the general ability to set up such a link to cast lesser spells over (in Eclipse; the Ties of Blood spell) starts off at tenth level. Ah well; even if you insist on using the spell as-is, at least in Eclipse there are plenty of defenses (and even some ways to reflect it back on the attacker).

Explosive Runes… Well, some particular rune must be read first yes? Won’t that kind of inhibit reading the next one even if the initial blast leaves the next set of runes intact and visible? Worse, if you write them identically – one set of runes directly over the last – only the top layer can be read at one time. If you don’t, then eventually they’ll be too much overlap for anyone to be able to read them at all. Admittedly, that kind of reasoning will only make sense to the people who consider setting-logic to be at least as important as rules-logic – but I happen to be one of those, and this IS a question about my opinions.

Sending in a horde of the mindless dead has it’s places – but unless you take some risks and supervise them somehow, a simple pit can take out hundreds of them.

There are reasons why Contact Other Plane is rarely used; it’s risky and it’s untrustworthy.

And really… Locate City Bomb? Even the most rules-bound game master will usually squelch that one. It involves blatant abuse of multiple items. Fortunately, in Eclipse, you can be pretty sure that it won’t work anyway. Just as an example, the Eye of the Dragon ability allows it’s possessors to automatically absorb spells that would affect them – and if they absorb an area effect, they negate it entirely. That’s a rare talent in the general population – but it’s out there. If your spell would negatively affect many thousands of people, there’s likely to be a roll-off to see who uses some special ability to negate it first.

Oh come on! Aren’t they magical nexi in pretty much every setting ever? There are some conventions that you just can’t break!

Aegypt had been invaded before; the people of the Young Kingdoms – the Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians – had all launched attacks. There had been deaths, the sacking of villages and border towns, and sometimes that had even seized a village or two – but the magic of the priests of Aegypt reigned supreme. Waves of invaders had broken upon the bulwarks of the Gods, who’s might none might gainsay within the circles of the world.

But beyond the Borders of the Earth, the Shadows of the Gods, Apophis’s Spawn, watched and waited. To the Young Kingdoms they appeared as “Gods” of their own – primitive, unjust, and brawling, but theirs, as the distant powers of Aegypt were not. When Rome was founded in the Wild Lands, the hands of Apophis’ Spawn were upon it – and they concealed their power, the devouring strength of the Dark Waters beyond the World, in the blood and banners of it’s people, suckled upon the wolf’s teat.

When the Legions of Rome marched on Aegypt, the priests once again turned the primordial powers of the Gods against the invaders – but this time, as the Legions fell, the powers that were used against them were stolen by the lurking darkness, and did not return to the Gods. Their ancient might, the foundation and sustenance of the world, was shaken, and the earth shook with it, vomiting fire and ash to darken the skies. In every temple the priests saw dread portents and onrushing doom – for the Gods, bereft of the power to defy time, were suddenly senile, and dying – and the earth would perish with the Gods that sustained it.

But in that dark vision was a glimmer of hope; the power of the Gods could not be carried back into the void beyond the walls of creation. The demons who held it were trapped in their turn, caught within the circles of the Earth until the world’s end – which approached all too swiftly – or until they are slain, and the power they have stolen freed to return to the Gods. As for the Gods themselves… they could be sustained for a time by the meager energies of mortal men, offered to them through their altars, in contests, and in rituals.

And so sacrifices were offered up in a steady stream; a tithe of contests to invigorate, rituals to soothe, and lives to sustain, the gods while the people of Aegypt went forth to hunt down the Spawn of Apophis – and to conquer, to send resources back to Aegypt that the sacrifices might continue and the world be sustained thereby. Numidia, Italia, Macedonia, Galatia, and Judea, the Circle of the Young Kingdoms, all were gathered into the great Aegyptian Empire as sources of contests and sacrifices, as bases for suppling expeditions into the Wild Lands in pursuit of the Spawn, and as sources of slaves and taxes to support the great quest.

While unrest seethes within the conquered lands, and the beast-men of the wild lands follow demonic leaders and seize the chance to attack, many of the great Legions of Rome, Beastmasters of Numidia, Heroes of Macedonia, and even Visionaries from Galatia and Judea are called upon to join the great hunt. Sadly, some hear the siren call of rebellion more clearly – even if such a path leads ultimately to the destruction of the world. Still, if any effort of the People of Aegypt can be enough, the Gods, the Earth – and their Children – will live.

It’s always convenient to have some clear goals for a campaign. Here it’s pretty simple; maintain stability, sustain the gods, gather allies, and hunt down the Spawn of Apophis – or watch the world end.

OK, maybe it’s not necessarily all that simple – but it’s certainly clear.

On Magic:

Divine Magic: While the powers of the Gods, and the magic that their priests can draw from them if they must, are still the greatest force within the Circles of the World, the greater magics now require mighty rituals, contests, and sacrifices to replace the power that they draw from the gods – and their priests much devote a good deal of their time to soothing and maintaining their dying Gods. Lesser magics are still fairly readily available however, and extend to fourth level effects in the great temples of Aegypt, to third level effects in most of the world, to second level in areas of great desolation where the demons have had the most impact, and only to first level effects beyond the Walls of the World.

Arcane Magic draws on the power of the Spawn of Apophis – and even at it’s peak is normally a weak and feeble thing compared to the glories of the Gods. Arcane Spells of up to fourth level may be cast beyond the Walls of the World, spells of the third level may be cast in places of great desolation, of the second level in most of the world, of the first level in Aegypt, and they cannot be cast at all in the great temples of Aegypt. Worse, it invariably has corrupting and destructive side effects, whether on the user or the environment.

Psychic Powers draw on the user’s personal energies. Unfortunately, humans don’t have all that much of those, hence psychic powers are limited to lower-end Witchcraft and (after long training) second-level psionic effects.

A variety of secondary power sources – pyramids which concentrate the natural energies of the land to empower nymic (“heka”) magic, veins of crystal which store the power and magic of the Sun, and similar structures, items, and places, can also power magic – but their capacity is always limited and few can power effects of above second level – although the Great Pyramid can indeed power third level effects.

The population is generally human, and uses the basic rules for a human being unless otherwise noted.

The people of Aegypt are indeed the chosen folk (or at least the ones in the magical center of the world); they may all use a variety of lesser magical devices (Charms and Talismans, although it’s somewhat dependent on their social rank and role, 6 CP), they gain a second bonus feat (6 CP), they radiate Presence (an Inspiring Word aura affecting their allies. This also provides some social benefits among the other races, although everyone in Aegypt is used to it, 6 CP), and may practice any type of “magic” within the limits of the setting save for Arcane Magic and Shapeshifting. They may not, however, use “advanced” technologies – such as iron, siege engines, windmills, improved sails and ships, and so on; the Gods have shaped their society and their forms, and so shall it remain*. Their culture tends to be easygoing and fairly classical – which is why they’ve been forced to adapt some Roman and Hellenistic notions to re-organize their society for war. They do tend to disapprove of demon-worship (even in the vague guise of “Other Gods”), but it doesn’t really matter NOW. The damage is already done.

*The general technology of the world is Romanesque – although there are occasional devices made possible by magical materials that could fit into considerably higher technology levels.

The peoples of the Young Kingdoms may use a smaller number of Charms and Talismans (3 CP), but automatically gain two skill points per level instead of one (eight at first level, 3 CP) and gain a +2 to an attribute (which one depends on their origin, 12 CP). They may use Arcane Magic, and have limited access to other types of supernormal abilities depending on their origin. They may not, however, practice divine magic beyond the most basic levels or study more than (Wis Mod) types of magic in total. They have mostly retained their cultures; the switch from Roman to Aegyptian overlords really hasn’t made that much difference. As far as the Aegyptians are concerned, the Gods told THEM how to live; if they’d wanted to give directions to the people of the Young Kingdoms, presumably they would have done so.

The Beastmen of the Wild Reaches cannot (normally) use Charms and Talismans, but have a limited form of shapeshifting (that can be improved on) resembling Lycanthropy (a 15 CP package – although an exceptionally valuable one due to the attribute bonuses of anthropomorphic forms) and gain two skill points per level (eight at first level, 3 CP). They may only use a single other field of magic however, although they may choose between arcane magic, secondary power sources, and personal energies. They’re primarily tribal, although there are a number of minor variants (gothic, celtic, etc). Unfortunately, many of their tribes are heavily demon-influenced.

Condensing the 3.5 skills listing is a pretty common request. Unfortunately, it tends to create must-have uber-skills like “perception” – and often leaves rarely-taken skills like “Forgery” even further out in the cold or lumped in with something entirely inappropriate.

Still, it is really is popular, skills have been seriously devalued over the years and need some pepping up to make them worthwhile again, and it’s not like there aren’t a hundred other versions of condensed skill lists out there already. Secondarily, the base skills are pretty bland. In a world full of magic, why don’t they cover a bit of it?

Ergo, here’s a quick attempt to make sure that all the skills are actually worth taking. They aren’t all perfectly balanced of course – nothing ever is – but they should all be both useful and fun to have.

Acrobatics (Dex, Armor Check Penalty): Includes Balance, Escape Artist, Ride, and Tumble. At rank 8 you may take 3d4 damage to pull off an nigh-impossible stunt – dislocating your bones to escape chains, jumping down a series of falling rocks to break a fall, or some such. At Rank 16 the damage from such a stunt is reduced to 2d4, and at rank 24 to 1d4.

Appraise (Int): May be used to identify magical items, evaluate animals, and bargain. Characters with at least (Level/2) ranks of Appraise effectively get 10% extra when treasure or rewards are split up. Those with at least (Level) ranks of Appraise get 20% extra. This doesn’t actually reduce anyone’s allotment of treasure; those who are skilled in getting the best prices can simply make their cash go further.

Why are these shifting minimums? Because you’re presumed to be buying level-appropriate stuff for the most part – and thus will be negotiating with higher-level sellers with better skills of their own.

Athletics (Str, Armor Check Penalty): Includes Climb, Jump and Swim. Also covers things like power-lifting, kicking open doors, running marathons, outrunning monsters, and similar activities. The user may make an Athletics check instead of a straight attribute check for such attempts. At rank 8 you may take 3d4 damage to pull off an nigh-impossible stunt – briefly supporting an impossible weight, dashing across water for a few seconds, sinking your fingers into the stone of a wall while falling past it to try to climb it again, diving off a cliff with a rope to catch up to a falling individual and catch them, and so on. At Rank 16 the damage from such a stunt is reduced to 2d4, and at rank 24 to 1d4.

Arcana (Int): Includes Knowledge/Arcana, Knowledge/Psionics, Psicraft, and Spellcraft, as well as performing magical rituals. Every three full ranks of Arcana allows the user to employ one minor ritual, even without any special ritual feats or abilities.

Concentration (Con): Covers Autohypnosis, Concentration, and Control Shape. May also be used to briefly withstand dangerous forces given a few moments to prepare – for example, performing classical firewalking (DC 14), reaching into a furnace to pull out that magical blade without hurting yourself (DC 18), pulling free a high-voltage line without injury (DC 24).

Craft (Int): Craft ranks apply to (3 + Int Mod) areas. For example a Wizard with Int 16 could be skilled in Alchemy, Engraving, Glassblowing, Goldsmithing, Gemcutting, and Bladesmithing – everything he needs to make most magical devices. Anyone with at least (Level/2) ranks in Craft can live a reasonable lifestyle for their level by spending a few hours a day using their skills. Anyone with at least (Level) ranks in Craft can live an excellent lifestyle for their level in the same way.

Deception (Cha): Includes Bluff and Disguise as well as setting up diversions, con artistry, phony accounting, and coming up with believable false rationales. At rank 10+ you may use up to (Cha Mod) levels worth of appropriate Enchantment/Charm spells of up to level three daily through your words alone (Save DC is Charisma-Based, Caster Level = User Level). At rank 20+ the limit increases to spell level five and (2x Cha Mod) spell levels. At rank 30+ the limit increases to spell level seven and (3x Cha Mod) spell levels – the maximum.

Engineering (Int): Includes Knowledge/Architecture and Engineering, building and operating siege engines, machinery, mills, clockwork, hydraulics, pneumatics, deducing things about structures (such as locating secret rooms, passages, and doors), finding weak points to attack (can effectively double damage against inanimate objects with a GMO check), building gadgets, and working with pretty much anything else mechanical. Engineers may specify one quasi-magical gadget they they routinely carry for every three full ranks in engineering that they carry, and may trade these out given a week or two. If you want a pocket full of smoke pellets, a clockwork mechanism that fast-reloads your heavy crossbow five times before it needs ten minutes rewinding, a spring-loaded sleeve-grapnel, a sword that can fire it’s blade at an opponent, sneezing powder, and other gizmos, then this is the skill for you.

Heal (Wis): Includes surgery, psychotherapy, acupuncture, herbalism, minor magical rituals of healing, and advanced medicine. Users with at least four ranks may attempt a DC 15/25/35 check to reproduce the effects of a L1/L2/L3 curative spell up to (Wis Mod) times per day – although they may not “take 20″ on this check. Each +5 ranks adds one use per day.

Linguistics (Int): Includes Forgery, Decipher Script, and Speak Language (bestowing one extra language – speaking, reading, and writing – per rank). It also covers using and understanding dialects, knowing the meanings of names, getting messages across language barriers, and similar tasks. Being based on Int, this covers the free extra languages you get for a high intelligence.

Local Knowledge (Int) is a downright supernatural knack; it covers knowing about trails, bars, customs, stories, major individuals, businesses, traditions, creatures in the area, and so on EVERYWHERE YOU GO. If you only want to know about a PARTICULAR area, spend 1 SP to get a +15 on that specific location. It’s a LOT easier to know all about Allentown PA than it is to know that much about every location on Earth.

Perception (Wis): Includes Search, Spot, Listen, and (for that matter) smell checks. Optionally, characters with at least (Level) ranks in Perception may receive a +1 Synergy Bonus on Reflex Saves. Perception is so useful that it doesn’t really need sweetening, but that seems reasonable.

Perform (Cha): Perform ranks apply to (3 + Int Mod) areas, as with Craft. Anyone with at least (Level/2) ranks in Perform can live a reasonable lifestyle for their level by spending a few hours a day using their skills. Anyone with at least (Level) ranks in Perform can live an excellent lifestyle for their level in the same way. A skilled performer can achieve basic bardic effects such as fascinating an audience up to (Cha Mod) times per day, but the minimum skill requirements are doubled.

Persuasion (Cha): Includes Diplomacy and Intimidation, as well as propaganda, writing to persuade, writing treaties, acting as a judge, and salesmanship. At rank 10+ you may use up to (Cha Mod) levels worth of appropriate Enchantment/Charm spells of up to level three daily through your words alone (Save DC is Charisma-Based, Caster Level = User Level). At rank 20+ the limit increases to spell level five and (2x Cha Mod) spell levels. At rank 30+ the limit increases to spell level seven and (3x Cha Mod) spell levels – the maximum.

Religion (Int): Includes Knowledge/Religion, Knowledge/The Planes, and religious ceremonies. At 6+ ranks this includes the ability to cast three 0-level clerical spells per day. At 12+ ranks it provides +1 bonus level of religious spellcasting (cleric, druid, or similar). At 18+ ranks it provides access to a Domain, and at 24+ ranks it provides an additional bonus level of religious spellcasting.

Profession (Wis, Trained Only): Profession skills are broad-based. For example, Profession / Sailor may be used to tie knots and use rope, predict the weather at sea, navigate, climb and balance in the rigging, patch sails, do basic carpentry on hulls, and load and fire cannons. Profession/Dungeoneering covers Knowledge/Dungeoneering, organizing an expedition, major monsters and their characteristics, lost treasures, locations of dungeons and caverns, not getting lost in them, and so on.

Scholar (Int): Covers Knowledge/Geography, Knowledge/History, and Knowledge/Nobility and Royalty – as well as creatures, customs, etiquette, and law. Every five full ranks of Scholar provides a one-level step in one of the Favored Enemy or Favored Foe variants from Eclipse.

Socialize (Wis): Includes Gather Information, Handle Animal, and Sense Motive – as well as serious partying. Each two full ranks in Socialize provides the user with a valuable contact – someone with special skills, unusual abilities, political influence, or similar – which he or she is willing to use to help the character out, at least within reason.

Stealth (Dex): Includes Hide and Move Silently as well as setting up camouflage, smuggling things past searches, hiding things. At rank 8+ you can hide things about your person so well that even the universe loses track of them, giving the user the equivalent of a built-in, nondispellable, Handy Haversack. At rank 16+ you may become invisible (as per Improved Invisibility) for a total of (Dex Mod) minutes (in total, counting per round, activation is a free action) per day. At rank 24+ you may become incorporeal for a total of (Dex Mod) rounds per day, as per Improved Invisibility, above.

Survival (Int): Includes Knowledge/Nature, Survival, and Use Rope. Used for tracking, finding food, basic navigation/avoiding becoming lost, building shelters, and prospecting. At rank 6+ the user is protected as if by Endure Elements and may learn animal languages, such as “equine” or “feline”. At rank 12+ the user leaves no trail if he or she does not desire it. At rank 18+ the user’s movement is no longer hindered by overgrowth or terrain. At rank 24+ the user becomes immune to natural poisons and those of Vermin

Thievery (Dex, Trained Only): Includes Disable Device, Open Locks, and Pick Pocket / Sleight of Hand. At rank 6+ the user may attempt to use such a skill as a free action up to (Dex Mod) times per day. At rank 12+ the user may similarly use such as skill at a range of up to 30 feet (Dex Mod) times per day. At rank 18+ the user will attract 3d6 young rogues, stolen from their normal lives. At rank 24+ the user may, once per day, attempt to steal magical properties or abilities – although the user may only have one such property or ability in his or her possession at a time. Thus, one day, he might steal a mages Disintegrate spell, using it a day later. Next up, the magic of a sword, transferring it to a sword of his or her own. The day after? A use of a dragon’s breath weapon, leaving it having to wait another 1d4 rounds to use it.

Now here we have a young gold dragonness who’s managed to give her parents the slip to meld into the (fascinating!) human population.

Unfortunately, while her transmutation spells are capable of making her more human-shaped, they don’t really hide the fact that she’s draconic – although you might, if you’re generous, mistake her for a half-dragon.

For her race we’ll be using the basic Dragon Template – albeit with a few small tweaks to go from “white dragon” to “gold dragon” – even if that is a “Slayers”-inspired Golden Dragon.

Skill Points: 8 (CP spent) +12 (Int Mod x 4) = 20 SP. The player hasn’t decided where to spend these yet though. For the moment, I’ll go with the condensed skill list and take Arcana (+7), Heal (+5), Survival (+7), Perception (+8 with +3 Racial), and Persuasion (+8), all at a base of four ranks.

Heart of the Dragon II, Specialized in Transmutation to allow her to use first level transmutation effects via Shaping (6 CP).

Augmented Bonus/Excessive Cuteness: Adds (Cha Mod) to AC (6 CP).

Occult Sense/Treasure (Can detect treasure within 60′) (6 CP).

Berserker (Standard Barbarian, 6 CP).

Lore, Specialized in Dragons (3 CP).

Now this young dragoness is pretty formidable for an ECL 2 character – but the lower the total ECL, the more the template dominates things. If the party is reasonably high-powered for ECL 2 – and if it wasn’t, who’d be considering letting a dragon into play? – she should be a close enough match.

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